Supreme Court hears bid to deny labor union access to California farms [ABC News]
… The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday will hear arguments in Cedar Point’s challenge to a 45-year-old California law that authorizes union organizers to access farm property for 120 days a year, three hours a day, during non-work periods to meet with workers. Farm owners call the state mandate an unconstitutional taking of private property without compensation. State officials say the rule is essential to protecting the right to organize for a highly migratory, low-income workforce. Legal scholars say a decision that strikes down the California union access law could have potentially major implications for health and safety inspections, home visits by social workers and anti-discrimination rules nationwide.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-hears-bid-deny-labor-union-access/story?id=76395878
Editorial: Property rights at the Supreme Court [Wall Street Journal]
The Supreme Court has sometimes treated property rights as the prodigal son of the Constitution, and on Monday the Justices have an opportunity to welcome it back with some rules on behavior. … The Court’s hedge enabled the California board’s overreach, which has grown more flagrant with time. … Even if a state isn’t outright expropriating property, the Court has long held it may still violate the Constitution’s takings clause per se by physically occupying property and limiting an owner’s right to do with it as he pleases.
Opinion: Will the Supreme Court stand up for the meager rights of farmworkers? [Los Angeles Times]
… To protect this vulnerable group, California law gives unions a limited right to enter growing sites. … Permanent physical occupations of land are always takings, but the entries here are far from permanent. … The decision in Cedar Point Nursery will be a test of the Supreme Court and its three new justices. Will they decide in favor of past precedent and the understandings of the founding generation? Or will they create a radical new understanding of property owner and government rights?
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-03-21/farmworkers-labor-union-supreme-court-takings
Voices from the Vineyard: 2020 harvest, cut short by North Bay wildfires, ‘devastating’ for wellbeing of farmworkers [Napa Valley Register]
… After all was said and done, it seemed to Eduardo, 36, a father of four, that he’d spent just a single month of the past year able to find consistent work and pay. … Eduardo’s story is not a unique one; Rabell Gonzalez, perhaps more than anyone in San Joaquin County, knows that fact well. Since early summer of last year, he has distributed more than $800,000 in direct, emergency financial assistance — almost exclusively to migrant field laborers, some of whom commute from San Joaquin to Napa or Sonoma counties, where pay is higher. … Napa Valley’s grape growers and vineyard management companies worked hard this year to find alternative work for their year-round crews, according to Napa Valley Farmworker Foundation Board Member Mike Wolf.
Marin assemblyman’s bill would permit more mobile slaughter units [Marin Independent Journal]
A new bill introduced by Assemblyman Marc Levine would make it legal in California for mobile units to slaughter goats, sheep and swine at farm and ranch sites instead of having to send them miles away to stationary slaughterhouses. … Many more consumers have started purchasing their meat directly from producers since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. … This new demand for their products came as a godsend to many Marin ranchers and farmers who had been selling a large portion of their agricultural products to restaurants that were shuttered due to the pandemic. Lewis said one bottleneck that ranchers and farmers have faced, however, is the relatively few local slaughter houses and butcher shops to process the meat.
https://www.marinij.com/2021/03/19/marin-assemblymans-bill-would-permit-more-mobile-slaughter-units/
Point Reyes seashore water tests find high bacteria levels [Marin Independent Journal]
Five waterways in the Point Reyes National Seashore were found to contain unsafe concentrations of bacteria — including up to 40 times the state health standards for E. coli at one site, according to recently published tests. The environmental organization that funded the water quality tests says the results raise questions about whether the National Park Service is doing enough to curb runoff pollution from commercial beef cattle and dairy ranches operating within the seashore. The findings come as the California Coastal Commission prepares to vote on April 22 on a controversial proposal to extend ranch leases to up to 20-year terms.
https://www.marinij.com/2021/03/20/point-reyes-seashore-water-tests-find-high-bacteria-levels/
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